Chicago Tribune Reviews

by Observant Hoosier Next Door

McMahon-you are a coward. The moving of Kass’ column to a place in the paper where it is an obvious reaction to his writings on Soros and Madigan suggests you are under their influence rather than unafraid of exposing their acts. Soros is a socialist and his motives are so far left leaning, his success would destroy the country we know, turning it into what was East Germany. Madigan has enriched himself at the expense of the people of the State of Illinois to the extent of nearly destroying the once great state. The state has a few death throes remaining but there is little hope left. A whisper of that hope is Kass and you’ve buried his column where fewer will read it and his voice will be stymied.

by Filip-p

How can your app keep getting worse? I never used to have a problem opening ChicagoTribune or downloading the enewspaper. Now it opens and just hangs for what feel like a minute. When if finally opens the enewspaper just keeps circling and saying loading. Today it never opened.

When all this worked why did you make downloading so difficult? In the past I have selected the edition selected all pages then save it to Apple Books and sometimes no pages save or only the fist pages. It usually take 3-4 tries before I get it downloaded and saved. How can you app get worse instead of better with each new version?

by Tpa411

Long time print subscriber and unlimited digital access doesn’t work- they will not allow me to get on digital as it repeatedly doesn’t recognize me even though it shows me as logged in and full access?! Went through steps diligently... No help option anywhere and password reset is worthless as it still won’t get me in. Can’t spend another minute wasting my time with no option to get help anywhere on the site (I dare you to find a help/customer service link easily). Interestingly I still get emails and notifications every couple hours...

by Dbld54

I’ve been a Tribune subscriber for over 30 years and a digital subscriber since ChicagoTribune first became available. Until the past couple years or so it was mostly good; however, ChicagoTribune has changed and now I can NEVER get through a single issue without turning a page and having it bounce back several pages, repeating randomly and often. Have to call up the menu and select a section (Business, Sports, etc.) so it will reset (sort of) but then re-occur after a few pages. This happens no matter which device I use - I’ve tried several different iPads. It is extremely irritating and I now actually dread reading the Trib. I’m seriously considering changing to any of the other news sources (Google, Apple, USA Today, etc.), all of which work flawlessly. GET IT RIGHT CHICAGO TRIBUNE - it shouldn’t be that hard.

by Kate274

The enewspaper view is now slow and sluggish. Pages load much more slowly than before and ChicagoTribune crashes regularly. Is this due to the ad header bar at the top of the page?

One annoying enewspaper glitch: if you open an article to read, hitting “close” advances you to the next page in the enewspaper instead of returning you to the original page. Some pages have multiple stories so either readers have to page back — or miss the other stories altogether.

I’m a longtime Trib subscriber and switched to digital 2 years ago. The latest app update has been a huge disappointment.

by Amerfrst

In 2010 I purchased a digital edition subscription to the Chicago Tribune via ChicagoTribune store. On October 2019 I called The Tribune to cancel my subscription. The Tribune then offered me a 1 year promotional subscription for $1.04. I accepted that offer. Now one year later I called the Tribune regarding the subscription price after the one year promotional subscription. They extended the subscription for another year at the $1.04 price. I have since learned that for a year October 2019 to October 2020 I had been paying ChicagoTribune Store/ITUNES $5.30 per month for an additional Chicago Tribune digital subscription. In this age there is apparently no communication between the ITunes/App store and the Chicago Tribune which should have noted my dual subscriptions to the same subscriber using the same personal information.
BE AWARE OF YOUR PURCHASES THRU ITUNES/APP STORE !

by Leojn

I have contacted the trib multiple times over the past year to try to find someone who can respond to a glaring issue connected to all the “links” in ChicagoTribune launched from images of sections - sports, obituaries, opinion, etc. Every one (and there are many) links to a page asking the user to open ChicagoTribune (which doesn’t resolve) and otherwise promotes the ability to subscribe or log in (even though I am already logged in). This amateurish app could be fixed by an 8th grader with minimal tech chops and the fact that the problem has persisted for over a year is completely unacceptable. I suspect the formerly powerful Tribune is headed to the journalism trash heap. There are many other issues but why bother mentioning them since there is no inclination to address them.

by Ljustfacts

The latest version of this constantly deteriorating application has move the constant banner add from the bottom of the screen to the top, (apparently the owners think we are paying for the ads as the first, most important thing in ChicagoTribune ).

Now the ads decrease the screen real estate and viewing area by 1/6th, (I don’t remember getting a 16.7% rebate on my subscription), making it even more difficult to read the actual newspaper articles. The ads also slow down the performance of ChicagoTribune going from page to page.

With management and design decisions like those behind this application, it is no surprise that fewer and fewer people are reading newspapers, even their electronic versions.

by DGdude1953

The Tribune caved and after 23 years as the Chicago Tribune’s conservative standard-bearer, John Kass was stripped of his coveted spot on Page 2 and his status as the newspaper’s “lead columnist.” when the Tribune Guild Executive Board condemned Kass for an “odious, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that billionaire George Soros is a puppet master controlling America’s big cities” that “does not deserve a mainstream voice.”. Kass inherited this spot in 1997 from Mike Royko.

The fact that Soros’s religion was never mentioned in the article and has no bearing on the subject at hand. I never knew it and it means nothing.

The lame excuse “the Tribune doesn’t do a very good job of explaining the difference between news coverage and opinion writing.” Now lumping all opinion writing in one place and have added explanatory language to editorials by the Editorial Board. We’ve developed a standard for headlines to call out what are opinion columns.

How ignorant to assume a reader needs an explanation to differentiate opinions from reporting. I will not accept this treatment and with it I cancelled my subscription. On to the Wall Street Journal,!

by Andystanis

It took me a while to figure this out, but the only reason I can come up with for this crashing as often as it does, is because they are doing it on purpose. My theory is that they are charging advertisers by page views. By consistently crashing the iPad app and then taking me back to page one, I need to go page by page to get back to where I was pre-crash. Probably getting five page views per use just from me. Or it is the worst app of all time and anyone associated with developing it should hang their head in shame because it is an awful piece of s&*t

by SteelHorseman

Every time I attempt to click on an article I somehow have imperceptibly grazed an ad which immediately opens up to the web browser and that ad. I downloaded ChicagoTribune today because I am so frustrated with the Tribune website which perpetually tells me that I need to be a subscriber to view the article, which I am. I don’t know why I keep having to re-login to the Tribune website to view articles when I don’t have to do this for the Wall Street Journal or New York Times or Washington post. I just want to get local Contonde. I am sad at how downhill the Tribune has gone in terms of Contonde and ChicagoTribune and website. Both used to be so much better.

by Mike Matts

I find it extremely frustrating as a 7-day delivery + full digital access subscriber to use ChicagoTribune. Frequently, I will be logged in, click on an article, and instead of opening the article natively, ChicagoTribune will open a new browser window. The browser can’t tell I’m already logged in on ChicagoTribune , so it says I’ve reached the free article maximum. So I log in again inside the browser and read the article. When I want to go to the next one, or select a link inside that article, A NEW BROWSER OPENS! And guess what? I’ve reached my free maximum again because I’m not logged in the new browser window. I’m a paying customer, I shouldn’t be constantly locked out.

Chicago Tribune, you need to have your articles open natively inside ChicagoTribune . I don’t have these same issues with the New York Times app.

by LaFortunate Son

Sorry, struggled to find the right end to start. As to Trib itself, clearly not what it used to be. More worries about hedge fund take-over, which might lead to my cancellation altogether assuming all original content then gone, given all the *retirements* of credible and knowledgeable local news, arts, and sports reports over the last several years. As to App, ironically, not sure all stories from print editions make it on, or at least in an intuitively findable way. More annoying is the fact that certain articles (for local stories!) appear to open directly to the web page, which then are almost always blocked by a pop-up ad offering me a subscription to the Trib. My previous complaints about this resulted only in the advice that I reload ChicagoTribune . Problem not solved. Befuddled to understand why this would continue to be an issue for local coverage, as opposed to, say, all the reprints from New York Times or Washington post. I also subscribe to those and am not relying on the Trib to rely those to me.

by ATSF616

Since iOS 13 was released, my e-edition viewer will only display EVEN or ODD-numbered pages of any particular issue. The only remedy, and it’s a very clunky, awkward one, seems to be tapping the “pages” option and selecting each page individually from the line of thumbnails along the bottom of the screen and then wait while they load on the main screen. That is, if they load at all. For a $28/mo digital subscription, I am very disappointed. If it wasn’t for Mary Schmich, Rex Huppke and Eric Zorn, I would seriously consider canceling. Please, please FIX THIS!

by Zenman007

I wrote a one star review of ChicagoTribune a while back as it was nearly unusable. Articles would not open, links were broken, and the search feature was useless. I thought it only fair to update that review in light of the tribunes efforts in updating their app. They have done a really nice job. ChicagoTribune is smoother, every article that you tap on opens, and the links to other articles and information seem to work. A minor complaint is that the ads are a bit intrusive and take up a lot of physical space. However, they do not cover up the content like they used to in the past, so I suppose that is a win. All in all a major improvement and far superior to their past product. Thank you, Tribune!

by 2lllffthgsfg

App runs flawlessly, but there is one key thing that I do not enjoy. Most applications sync to “night mode” where the display is black and the text is white at night. I often read in bed and even with my brightness all the way down I feel my eyes deteriorating while reading.

by Mcgreenx

Downloaded ChicagoTribune and it worked fine, BUT. There is no way to access the comic page (I like to read Doonesbury). I just spent 30-40 minutes talking to Trib Tech support and the best they could do, after trying several things and having me delete and reinstall ChicagoTribune , was to get me to the front page of the paper and having me move through the entire paper to page 41. The tech person specifically said that was the ONLY WAY to access the comics section! Weird IMO. And a pain.

by Grandpa Jim K

The Chicago Tribune is a FIVE STAR news source.

I’ve been reading the Tribune for many, many years an for the last two or three years online. Lately the website has really improved. In fact, I tend to first read the daily from the website, itself, first and then I go to the newspaper. Your coverage on the Convid-19 epidemic is great!

by Parallax Racing

My subscription to the Chicago Tribune app is constantly “forgetting” my account. After reading four articles it tells me I have met my monthly limit and I need to subscribe. But I am already paying $7.99 a month for my account. The Tribune subscription help desk tells me to delete ChicagoTribune and reload it. That works for a few days and then I start getting blocked again. It’s been so frustrating that I’ve finally cancelled the subscription.

by BlondBrickHouse2001

This is about the minimum one could tolerate for a News app. It shows you stories and allows you to read them. Really not presented well and nearly impossible to find a piece using the Search function- which normally produces a mess of articles that seem impossible to produce with the title I entered to search. What is the difference, I wonder, between “Top News” and “Breaking News?” Both seem to produce the same articles. Chicago Tribune can’t really be trying if this is the best they can do.

by KL1893759

Be prepared to see the same article title 3 times in the same scroll- very annoying if you are a daily reader. I just wish I could see all articles by publish date. I end up walking away feeling like I missed a ton of recent articles or having to look way too hard to find the most recent articles... instead of feeling that I am “all caught up” on the news. I miss you last two applications you had ... they made much more sense.

by Windy City Observer

The current Tribune app is unbelievably bad - layout and design are amateurish; key sections of the paper are missing; saved articles from previous version were not transferred; too much emphasis on photos rather than text & content; fonts are large and cannot be adjusted, although there is an option to do so.

The company took a previously problematic but functional app and created a piece of garbage not worthy of the Chicago Tribune. Why couldn’t they simply have looked at the New York Times app for inspiration?

by Mberan

Hardly. Now one needs to maneuver several steps to get the paper. Then one one does it’s no longer a paper "look". What happened to the original look? It looked and acted as a real paper does. A step backwards.

A re-review. Getting even worse. Loaded with paid ads now. Why? I subscribe to the print paper so I’m paying already for the ads in that. Download is horrid. Print becomes almost unreadable, especially at the back of the paper and especially on a day with a large edition e.g. Friday’s/Sundays. You really need to fix this

by Uselessuesless

Such a terrible update that it caused me to uninstall out of pure frustration. When headline or breaking news push notifications are clicked on from the Notification Center, it opens ChicagoTribune , then immediately opens Safari, where it asks me to sign in to my digital account, even though I’m signed in on ChicagoTribune . Then, when I close safari and open ChicagoTribune , it’s a crapshoot as to whether the story associated with the notification even appears on ChicagoTribune ! I’m not sure what others are so jazzed about with this new update, but it’s made ChicagoTribune completely unusable for me.

by Rod Park

This version is better than the previous version but that is really not saying much!
I prefer the digital edition of the newspaper. This is why I subscribe. I can get it on the go and enlarge the paper for easier viewing. Unfortunately, access to the “eNewspaper” is buried under two levels. Navigation to the “eNewspaper” is not easy or intuitive.
The eNewspaper is still bloated with ads. There are pages of ads that are not in the real paper and ads that pop up (reducing viewing space).

by Brother Jameson

I am continually annoyed that as a monthly subscriber - auto pay- I am continually asked for my password when I try to connect to an email story you have sent me.
If I have ChicagoTribune and am a known subscriber, then let me connect without having to login!
You have issues monetizing your online content so why make accessing difficult to monthly subscribers?! We are the people you should be bending over backwards to please!

by JacksonNCSU

ChicagoTribune is fine but the articles should open in ChicagoTribune instead Safari. Annoying to have to sign into the Tribune site when I have ChicagoTribune . This seems like a common feature on other apps, so hopefully this is a quick fix.

by Big Chicago Daddy

Trib’s app two versions ago was excellent.... gets worse with each new version... stories are unnecessarily repeated and other s are dropped from view after 24 hours. Today, I read about a Johnny MORRIS as the 44th Greatest Bear of all time. Who was 45? I do not know because that article was taken off ChicagoTribune ...Yet and still the article about Ron Coomer has been on ChicagoTribune for weeks. It is sad such little attention is paid to ChicagoTribune.

by Johnb896

The new update delivers some overdue improvements to ChicagoTribune . It finally feels usable, even though the aesthetics could use some tweaks (font size and image placement, for example, look much better in the NYT app). Overall very pleased with the upgrade in performance and usability!

by Jim B5664474394

They got rid of all the worst stuff - no more full page ads, no more freezing while opening an article. UI is much more pleasant and things are operating faster. Ads are less intrusive. Much needed update.

by TrickyDick101

Terrible update. I now have to scroll through mostly huge pictures. You said the update improved readability. NOT. If I want to see a bigger picture, I will select it. It is a waste of my time to scroll through these huge pictures. A picture is not worth 1000 words. Please give me an option for thumbnails.

by Russell_Fox

Just when I was about to cancel my subscription, they updated ChicagoTribune and it works great!

Still a little weird that articles repeat themselves as you scroll down top stories, but it doesn’t crash any more!

by Koji_B_88

Great job, Chicago Tribune! Your app update solves MANY of the pain points the original version had. Best part is swiping from the left returns you back to the article selection - quite tastefully too if I may add. Thank you!